Today, the United States endorsed a Statement of Principles for Indo-Pacific Defense Industrial Base Collaboration following extensive consultations with U.S. allies and partners across the Indo-Pacific region and around the world, including the recent Maluhia Talks at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii.
"Together with our friends in the region, we're breaking down national barriers and better integrating our defense industries," Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III said at the 2024 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. "We're also working together to fortify the shared capacity of the defense industrial bases of our allies and partners. That's why so many countries—including the United States—are endorsing a Statement of Principles today to strengthen the resilience of the region's defense industrial bases," which will benefit security and stability in this region and beyond.
Statement of Principles for Indo-Pacific Defense Industrial Base Collaboration
Recent global challenges and the current security environment have highlighted the importance of defense industrial resilience. In adopting this statement of principles, the participants endeavor to pursue collaborative actions, bilaterally and multilaterally and in accordance with national policies, to enhance our shared defense industrial resilience.
The following principles will guide these collaborative actions among likeminded participants:
- Ensuring shared defense industrial resilience is vital to the continued regional security, economic security, and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific.
- Strengthening defense industrial resilience requires collaborative action to expand industrial base capability, capacity, and workforce; increase supply chain resilience; promote defense innovation; improve information sharing; encourage standardization; reduce barriers to cooperation; and otherwise mitigate potential vulnerabilities and facilitate collaboration.
- Optimizing collaboration requires accounting for the needs, capabilities, and comparative advantages of participants' industrial bases consistent with free and fair market competition and protection of intellectual property.
- Conducting collaborative action will not be limited to governments, but also include industry, capital providers, academia, and other forms of partnership.
- Fostering further dialogue is needed to promote collaboration and increase shared defense industrial resilience.
Background
Today's announcement follows the January 2024 release of the Department of Defense's National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), which identified engagement with allies and partners to expand global defense production as a key line of effort toward advancing resilient supply chains. The NDIS states that the Department "must work with allies and partners through both multilateral and bilateral agreements to boost defense production, innovation, and overall capability."